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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786105">Cupcakes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evangelinerose/pseuds/evangelinerose'>evangelinerose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Theo One Shots &amp; Drabbles [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bakery AU, F/M, Fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:01:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,004</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786105</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/evangelinerose/pseuds/evangelinerose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Theo x Reader, Bakery AU. You’re opening your bakery, he’s closing his nightclub, and your paths always cross in the wee hours of the morning.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Theodore Nott/Reader, Theodore Nott/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Theo One Shots &amp; Drabbles [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cupcakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was still dark, just like it was every morning when you arrived.</p>
<p>Still, you liked it.</p>
<p>You liked being there at 3 AM, when most of the city was sleeping. The night owls had gone home and the early birds were not yet out, and everything was still, save for the occasional car passing by. There was something peaceful about unlocking the shop, flicking on all the lights, and turning on music to work. And you enjoyed all of it; choosing an apron and tying it carefully behind your back, systematically taking out all the ingredients you needed, flipping through your recipe books for inspiration and to help decide what fun colors and decorations you would put on your treats that day, and then joyfully getting your hands dirty to bake.</p>
<p>Flour and sugar and eggs, butter and frosting, knead, pour, mix, stir, decorate with concentration, repeat.</p>
<p>Today you were putting a particularly intricate flower on a cupcake when the tap on the glass of the door came.</p>
<p>It was 3:24 AM now, and he was wearing a suit today. You really wished he wasn’t. It was much harder not to stare at him.</p>
<p>Wiping your hands on your apron, you walked over to the door like you did almost every morning and pulled it open. Today you arched a playful eyebrow at him. “Fancy today, are we?”</p>
<p>He merely stepped in with a smirk, his dark eyes sweeping over you. A heat that had nothing to do with constantly standing near ovens surged through you, much as you tried to contain it.</p>
<p>Theodore Nott.</p>
<p>He had first tapped on your bakery door nearly two months ago right about this time of the morning despite the sign stating very clearly that you didn’t open until five. He had a mop of dark hair and sharp features and dark, calculating eyes, and when they looked at you, you felt exposed. You hadn’t liked it at first.</p>
<p>But now…</p>
<p>“I know you’re not open,” he had said on that first night when you opened the door an inch. “But a drunk threw up all over the damn bathroom of my club, and I only just got away. It was hell and I could desperately use a cupcake.”</p>
<p>He had given you a charming smile, and you had given him a skeptical look in return. “I promise I won’t murder you if you let me in,” he had wheedled, hopefully.</p>
<p>“Isn’t that what a murderer would say to get me to let them in?” you had asked, but you had stepped back anyway, even though you usually hated letting customers in before the official opening hours. People were pushy.</p>
<p>“Probably,” he had relented. “But seeing as I’m not one, I don’t really know.” He had grinned, and you had rolled your eyes and moved behind the counter to help him pick out a cupcake.</p>
<p>His grin, as you would come to find out over the next two months, was infectious.</p>
<p>He kept coming back after that. Sometimes he bought a cupcake. Sometimes a whole box of them.</p>
<p>After a week or two he was staying half an hour to chat with you. And then an hour, and then two, and he would bake with you, or play his own music, and you suddenly found that you were friends with the man who owned the night club down the street.</p>
<p>The problem, of course, was that you had, somewhere in the midst of all this, fallen for him hard, and he showed no signs of feeling the same.</p>
<p>Granted, Theo could be hard to read.</p>
<p>Sometimes you thought you saw something flicker in his eyes when you turned and bumped into his chest when you were both bustling about and baking in the kitchen; or other times he got a particular look on his face, a gaze laced with some sort of intensity and a sincerity.</p>
<p>But it was often gone as quickly as it had come, and it left you to deal with the butterflies and growing feelings in a horrid, pining silence.</p>
<p>“So are you going to tell me why you’re wearing that?” you asked, after he sauntered over to the counter and turned to face you.</p>
<p>“Important meeting,” he said smoothly.</p>
<p>“What kind of meeting?”</p>
<p>“I decided to sell my club,” he said, raising an eyebrow and watching you closely now. “After next week I won’t be in the area at an ungodly hour of the morning anymore.”</p>
<p>Your heart sank a little. “Oh,” you said quietly, but then gave him a huge smile. “Well congratulations on selling it, Theo, I’m sure that you - ”</p>
<p>But he cut you off by stepping forward, tugging you to him, and kissing you.</p>
<p>You were glad you hadn’t been holding anything important, because you would have dropped it. His hands came to your face and he backed you into the counter; it wasn’t fair how perfect the shape of his mouth was, or how he could so entirely invade your space and all your senses in the most wonderful of ways, smelling of pine and cedar and tasting very faintly of hard cider.</p>
<p>“Oh,” you said very breathlessly when you broke apart, peeking up at him.</p>
<p>“I thought,” he murmured, a little smile playing on his lips, “That perhaps we could spend time together in another time frame. Evening, maybe. Dinnertime. A time people typically go on dates, you see.”</p>
<p>“It sounds like you’re asking me on a date, Theodore Nott,” you teased, struggling to maintain what was left or your fragile composure. He was still pressed very closely to you and he hadn’t moved his hands from your face.</p>
<p>His thumbs traced a slow, careful pattern on your jaw, and he smiled again. “Oh Y/N, my sweet thing,” he answered softly, lowering his head once more and hovering inches from your mouth, “This took me far, far too long to do. Because as delicious as they are, I was never coming here for the cupcakes.”</p>
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